Antinuclear

Scott Morrison contradicted on link between emissions and bushfires, 

The Prime Minister said on Thursday climate change is a “global phenomenon” and Australia is doing its bit to reduce emissions.

He has acknowledged that climate change increases bushfire risk, but said there could be no link drawn between our emissions and any current bushfires.

“To suggest that with just 1.3 per cent of global emissions that Australia doing something differently, more or less, would have changed the fire outcome this season, I don’t think that stands up to any credible scientific evidence at all,” Mr Morrison said. “If anything Australia is an over-achiever on global commitments.”

Mr Morrison made the comments on a day when several homes were lost to fires in South Australia while Melbourne recorded its hottest November day since 1894 when the mercury hit 40.9 degrees at Olympic Park in the mid-afternoon.

“It’s the tragedy of the commons. Below the biggest emitters in China and the US you have dozens and dozens of countries contributing between 1.5 and 0.8 million tonnes, which adds up to the climate problem,” Dr Canadell said.

Because all the individual contributions are small no one feels responsible.

“Another way to put it is on my next tax bill, because my contribution to the country’s revenue is so small, that it doesn’t matter if I don’t pay.”

CSIRO’s most recent State of the Climate report found “there has been a long-term increase in extreme fire weather and in the length of the fire season across large parts of Australia since the 1950s”.

Eight of Australia’s 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2005 and since the late 1990s there has been about an 11 per cent decline in cool-season rainfall between April and October in the south-east of the country.